The Blog That Disappeared; New York Times, 7/29/16

Roxane Gay, New York Times; The Blog That Disappeared:

"On June 27, Mr. Cooper’s Google account was deactivated, he has said. He lost 14 years of his blog archives, creative work, email and contacts. He has hired a lawyer and made complaints, and many of his readers and fans have tried to support his efforts. There is a petition circulating, urging Google to restore his work. Pen America, an organization that promotes free expression, has weighed in, saying that Mr. Cooper deserves a substantive response from Google.

Thus far, these efforts have been in vain. Google has not responded beyond saying there was a violation of the Terms of Service agreement. It has neither identified the specific violation nor indicated why it also deleted Mr. Cooper’s email account. It has not provided Mr. Cooper with the ability to download his personal information so he might rebuild his blog and email account elsewhere. In one interview, Mr. Cooper said he thought that the male escort ads might have led to his account’s being deactivated, but this has not been confirmed by the company.

When I contacted Google for further comment, I got a response that said, “We are aware of this matter, but the specific Terms of Service violations are ones we cannot discuss further due to legal considerations.” I asked about why Mr. Cooper’s Gmail account was also deleted and whether or not he would be able to retrieve the archive of his work, and I was directed to Google’s Terms of Service, Gmail Policy and Blogger Content Policy, which did not offer any useful specifics."